This invention relates generally to an improved material pusher for use with agricultural equipment, and more particularly to a design and method of manufacture of a compact material pusher in order to improve the manufacturability of the material pusher.
The present invention is an improved snow or material pusher for use with agricultural and larger home and garden tractors on generally flat areas such as driveways, feed lots, and loading and parking areas.
A xe2x80x9cpusherxe2x80x9d differs from a typical snow plow blade or bucket as might generally be found on such implements. Pushers, as described, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,755 to Weagley (issued Mar. 3, 1998) or the folding Material Plow of U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,438, to Weagley et al. (issued Sep. 9, 2000), both assigned to Pro-Tech Welding and Fabrication, Inc. and hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, include sides extending forward from the mold board to assure material being pushed (e.g., material, water, debris, sludge, etc.) remains in front of the pusher, and is not directed to the side as with conventional plows. Whereas the larger material pushers were designed for use with loaders and other heavy-duty equipment for clearing parking lots, runways and roads, there is a need for a smaller, lighter-weight version that may be used by agricultural and lawn/garden tractors having front or rear lifting capability (e.g., buckets)xe2x80x94not only for snow removal, but for clearing of debris, including animal waste, etc.
Heretofore, a number of patents and publications have disclosed plow configurations, the relevant portions of which may be briefly summarized as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,755 to Weagley, issued Mar. 3, 1998, discloses a snow pusher having a transverse blade, side plates, wear shoes and horizontal posts for attaching the pusher to a bucket loader.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,438, to Weagley et al., issued Sep. 9, 2000, is directed to a foldable version of the snow pusher.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a material pusher including: an upstanding transverse blade with a front surface and a rear surface, said rear surface of said blade being stiffened using at least two longitudinal channels extending substantially the length of said blade and in parallel with one another, wherein one of said longitudinal channels is attached to the rear surface of said blade in a position so as to make an outer surface of the channel substantially perpendicular with the ground surface upon which the material pusher will travel and where the one channel further provides at least one surface for mounting of an attachment mechanism; a reversible rubber edge removably fastened to a lower edge of said blade at a position adjacent the ground surface; vertical side plates extending forward from each of a pair of opposing ends of said blade; and a wear shoe removably mounted on each of said side plates for sliding contact with the ground surface.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing a material pusher, comprising the steps of: bending metal plate into an arc to produce an upstanding transverse blade with a front surface and a rear surface; welding, to said rear surface of said blade, at least a top and a main longitudinal channel extending substantially the length of said blade and in parallel with one another to stiffen said blade, wherein said main longitudinal channel is attached to the rear surface of said blade in a position so as to make an outer surface of said main channel substantially perpendicular with the ground surface upon which the material pusher will travel and where said main channel further provides at least one surface for mounting of an attachment mechanism; attaching, to each of a pair of opposing ends of said blade, vertical side plates extending forward from the blade; attaching a reversible rubber edge to a lower edge of said blade at a position adjacent the ground surface; and removably mounting wear shoes on each of said side plates for sliding contact with the ground surface.
One aspect of the invention is based on the discovery that a pusher suitable for use with a broad range of agricultural tractors and other equipment may be partially mass-produced and then completed, with appropriate attachment mechanisms, in response to customer orders or inventory requirements. Furthermore, the design of such units results in a reduction in weight required to make the pushers usable with smaller tractors such as those found in agricultural and home/garden situations. This discovery of a design employing a main longitudinal channel that serves for stiffening the pusher blade and as a mounting attachment bearing surface avoids problems that arise in providing a variety of mounting attachments.
The techniques described above are advantageous because they provide a simple means of enabling the efficient production of compact pushers with a variety of attachment requirements, as compared to other approaches that require a custom design for each attachment mechanism. The techniques make it unnecessary to have a large inventory of pushers for each type of tractor that could use the pusher. Furthermore, the technique can be adapted to any of a number of plow or implement designs. As a result of the invention, it is possible to pre-fabricate components of the final pusher product and to simply tailor the attachment mechanism to the customer requirements, and mount the attachment mechanism to the blade assembly prior to shipping to the customer.